Hello and welcome to the Battleground Ukraine podcast with me, Roger Morehouse and Saul David.

After the excitement of last week's Russian drone attack on Poland,

and I think we can all agree in retrospect that it was an attack,

this week marked something of a return to, if not normal,

then at least the status quo ante.

While the international community argued about the significance of the drone attack

and how the West should suitably respond,

the war on the ground continued much as it had before,

with some piecemeal Ukrainian advances recorded at Tsumi and Kharkiv

and minor Russian advances at Kupyansk and Pukrovsk,

but mostly it was as you were.

It was a similar story in the air,

with sporadic Russian missile and drone attacks,

most notably perhaps at Zaporizia,

from where shocking footage emerged earlier this week

of a missile impact on a civilian target.

The wider assault, which saw some 250 drones and missiles

fired into Ukraine overnight on the 15th to 16th of September,

saw numerous dead and injured. All part of the escalation of Russian air raiding, which has been

in evidence since Trump's clumsy wooing of Putin in Alaska a few weeks ago. In response to the

attacks this week, President Zelensky said that Russia could only carry out

its attacks because it does not feel pain. Until Russia feels truly significant losses, he went on,

...